Lake City strip club building burns

A notorious Lake City strip club in the process of being reopened under new ownership burned in a two-alarm fire Thursday night, though little damage was visible from the outside.

The site of the former Rick’s Nightclub at 11332 Lake City Way N.E. was bought late last month by the Déjà Vu company, which renamed the site DreamGirls at Ricks. Workers were preparing for its opening and were outside painting Thursday when the fire began, Seattle Fire Department spokesman Kyle Moore said.

The room workers had been in was where the blaze started, and when firefighters entered the club was filled with black smoke.

Fire spread through a wall and the ceiling, and firefighters became concerned when the roof became soft on the building, which was built in 1935 and had been previously renovated.

Signs for DreamGirls at Ricks went up earlier this month. It wasn’t clear how much the blaze would set back the opening. The site was sold at auction recently for $2.35 million – a price higher than expected, likely because no new use permits are required from the Department of Planning and Development to make the site a strip club again. The previous use permit doesn’t expire, department spokesman Bryan Stevens said earlier this year.

It’s possible a construction permit of some sort might be needed, Stevens said, but that wouldn’t require a neighborhood review, just that the new owner meet technical codes.

Rick’s was seized in 2010 as part of the racketeering prosecution of Frank Colacurcio Sr., his son Frank Jr. and their associates. The elder Colacurcio died last summer, and his son pleaded guilty, agreeing to forfeit more than $1 million and his interest in four strip clubs and the group’s nearby Talents West office, which also was auctioned late last month.

The Talents West site was sold for $600,000, but the winning bidder did not say what he intended to do with the property. The bidder who lost out had hoped to tear the property down and build apartments.

Dreamgirls is also the name of the company’s club at 1530 First Ave. S., which opened in April 2010 near Safeco Field despite challenges from the Seattle Mariners organization.

Déjà Vu also has a strip club less than two miles away from the site of Thursday’s fire at 14556 Bothell Way N.E., technically part of Lake Forest Park because it’s about 240 feet over the North Seattle boundary.

DreamGirls at Ricks would be the second North Seattle strip club to open this year. On July 12, Pandora’s Adult Cabaret opened at the site of the former Seven Seas Chinese restaurant at 8914 Lake City Way N.E. Read more about Pandora’s here.

The Rick’s auction was conducted by Emily Macon of Northwest Auctions. Part of that auction can be heard below, courtesy of Northwest Auctions partner Paul Thomas.